All the Weakness of the World
by black.k.kat
Summary: In the wake of Jack's departure in The End of Days, Owen realizes that rebuilding the team is going to be a team effort. He starts with Ianto.


**Rating:** PG

**Word count:** ~ 1,300

**Warnings: **Tiny bit of language (it's Owen).

**Disclaimer: **All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

**A/N: **There've been a lot of post-End of Days fics that have Ianto taking care of everything and helping the team get back on their feet (hell, I've written some), but…that's the kind of thing that is usually a team effort. So…here's Owen taking the first step. (Title is from a quote by Arthur Schopenhauer: "The doctor sees all the weakness of the world; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.")

* * *

_**All the Weakness of the World**_

Owen is not a nice person.

Ask anyone, and they'll agree. He's shallow, rude, petty, and a bastard, and has a tendency to sleep with anything that stands still long enough and doesn't hold some sort of risk of emotional entanglement. He'd rather sleep with his all-but-engaged coworker than the woman who's been in love with him for years now, and is in love with a dead woman who was killed by aliens in her brain and a woman out of time, who had preferred flying into the Rift over staying with in the present with him. He joined a secret alien-fighting organization in reaction to the former, and walked into a cage with a Weevil because of the latter.

So, yeah, Owen is several magnitudes of fucked up, but for all of that, he's probably one of the more stable members of Torchwood Three—not that that's saying much, but still. He's a doctor. He's had training, and a normal life, and while he's a damn good doctor he's not a genius in any sense of the word. His life, up until Katie died, had been just about average. It puts him a step ahead of his coworkers, most of who wouldn't know normal if it jumped up and smacked them in the head with domesticity.

It's looking around the Hub, three days after stupid bloody Jack's disappearance, which really drives this fact home.

Gwen is at her desk, slumped forward in a way that makes Owen wince in sympathy for her spine as she attempts to fill out a sheaf of paperwork. As she's been staring at it for the past ten minutes without so much as penning in a single letter, Owen suspects she's not making much headway. She looks tired, too, weary beyond what a case would normally make her, and Owen has to remind himself that she had thought Rhys was dead just a little while ago.

She's probably the most normal one, after him, Owen thinks. Might even be more so, except she's got that bloody empathy that twists her up into knots beyond what most people would ever dream of feeling, especially for someone else.

And she's more than a bit in love with Jack. That's not overly conducive to 'normal' either.

And then there's Tosh, hunkered down over her keyboard in self-defense, as though the world is out to get her. Poor, sad Tosh, in love with Owen, in love with a murderous alien bird and a soldier from WW1 that they unfreeze every year. She's someone Owen _could_ love, very easily if he let himself, and that's the reason he can never even try.

Tosh isn't ordinary. She's a genius, and that precludes all definitions of normalcy. As far as Owen can tell, she doesn't have friends outside of Torchwood, she doesn't meet people unless she has to, and she doesn't even know the name of the neighbor who's lived in the next apartment over for six years now. Torchwood is her whole existence, just as much a prison as that UNIT cell was, although the Hub's a bit fancier.

She's not dealing with this, either. Not in the least.

And then there's Ianto, who's gone so far 'round the bend that he thinks _this_ is normal. Owen turns in his chair to look up at Jack's office, where Ianto's on the phone with the Prime Minister or the head of UNIT or possibly the Queen herself, trying to assure The Powers That Be that Torchwood Three is still operational, that Captain Harkness' absence hasn't cut off a necessary limb.

It's all lies, of course; Owen's aware enough to know that. The world might very well go to hell without Jack Harkness here to save it.

There's no question how this will go, at least not in Owen's mind. Gwen will take over for Jack, try to fill his shoes with her empathy and half-blindness to the extent of the threat they face, and Ianto will slip back into the shadows, doing the real running of Torchwood Three while letting her take all the credit. It's the way Ianto is, so used to fading that at this point Owen doubts any of them would be able to see him for what he is with a spotlight and a footman to announce him.

No, Owen isn't a nice person.

But he's also a doctor. There's something inside of him that is obsessed with fixing things, making them better. It could be natural, what made him want to be a doctor in the first place, or it could be the result of his years of training and school, but it's a part of him now regardless.

Owen, as a doctor, as a member of Torchwood, cannot help but look at Ianto and know that of the four of them, he's closest to the edge, even though he looks so eminently functional.

And, as a doctor, as a member of Torchwood, Owen can't _not_ try to fix something so clearly wrong.

With a sigh, a huff, he levers himself up from his chair and troops up the stairs. Ianto is still at the desk, perched uncomfortably on the edge—because none of them will ever be able to sit in Jack's chair, at Jack's desk—and he looks far too pale. _No sleep_, Owen catalogues critically. _Hasn't been eating, either_. And that's enough to make hi certain about what he's doing.

Quick as a particularly grumpy snake, Owen snatches the phone from Ianto's unsuspecting fingers, snaps, "He'll call you back, yeah? Emergency," into the receiver, and hangs up.

Ianto stares back at him, clearly horrified. "That was—"

Owen rolls his eyes, hooks his fingers into Ianto's stupidly neat collar, and heads for the door. "I don't care. What I _do _care about is the only person who knows the access and control codes working himself into a bloody coma. You're going to eat even if I have to force-feed you, and then you're going to sleep even if I have to drug you. Got it?"

Ianto rolls his eyes—because he's a tetchy, touchy bastard like that, even when he clearly hasn't slept since Jack left and is trying to run both remaining two branches on his own in the Captain's absence—and ignores the way the girls both stare as he's dragged past. "So much for the Physician's Oath," he mutters.

Owen gives him a mean grin. "Admittance to Torchwood means that Torchwood service takes precedence over all other sworn oaths."

"And of course, that _would_ be the section of the Charter you would memorize," Ianto returns as the cog door rolls shut, but it's clear that his entire heart isn't in it. He doesn't fight as Owen hauls him out through the Tourist Office and not—somewhat surprisingly, probably—towards a pub, but towards one of the nicer restaurants nearby.

Owen counts this as a minor victory, even as he girds himself for the coming battle that is getting Ianto to eat his vegetables.


End file.
